02.12.08

Hardly a days goes by that Rapture Ready is not the subject of an attack by an atheist group. Because RR is the largest prophecy site on the internet, we are a natural target for people who hate God.

I usually find out about these attacks in one of three ways: 1) Our server traces all inbound links or registrations; 2) services such as “Google Alert” inform us when other websites mention RR; and 3) various people who lurk on atheists’ sites inform us of their activity.

Like a moth to a flame, atheists keep coming our way. Here are four examples of atheists talking about their plans to cause trouble on our message board:

“Sometimes I get an irrational urge to prod a fundie. I create a user account on some fundie forum and toss a coin whether my persona is a Christian having serious doubts and pleading for help, or an all-out atheist looking to stir up trouble. Somehow, posing as a fellow-fundie allows one massive latitude to post some outlandish crap. During our Rapture Ready Raid last year, I posed as uber-fundie and two of my nine posts made it.”

“The website is called ‘Rapture Ready’ (thanks to Blueboy5 for finding it and planting the seed of this idea in my fertile brain). You can find it here: http://rr-bb.com/index.php.

These people not only seriously believe that The End Of The World is Nigh (Armageddon), but that it will herald the Second Coming of Christ, and that the Faithful (them) will be “Raptured” (Ascended bodily to Heaven for Judgment Day), but they also believe that it is just around the corner. And they are not only looking forward to it… THEY CAN’T WAIT!!!”

“I created a user account this last weekend – my username is “(A secret! Shhhh!)” I intend to ‘lurk’ for a week or so, to lend credibility to by persona, and then to proceed slowly.

My persona will be that of a middle-aged, naive, internet-illiterate, (hopefully) charming, archetypal Englishman, raised as a Christian, but agnostic for many, many years, and only recently ‘returned to the fold’, and curious about ‘End Times’ and ‘The Rapture’. I shall attempt to be a middle-class English gentleman: gentle, affable, friendly, kind, eccentric, slightly scatty, and fairly well educated (and – crucially – therefore, with some {to them} unusual/unorthodox ideas). I shall invent a computer- literate son to aid my technical learning process, and to bring in later as an unexpected agnostic/atheist crisis.”

“I will not underestimate my opponents (I hope). These people are not stupid. Misguided, delusional, irrational? Yes, perhaps… but not stupid. Also, I have no training or experience as an actor, and this is my first real OM. (This is not the first OM I have thought of, but it is the first one I have tried to put into practice) Again, if necessary, I will be relying on my innate charm, groveling skills. How effective these are remains to be seen.”

Atheists don’t seem to be able to let go of God, and I think this is their fatal flaw. If they truly wish to put Christianity into the grave, they need to devise their own workable faith and let God die from neglect.

Christianity vanquished the pagan gods of Europe by giving people an alternative that brought meaning and fulfillment to their lives. Atheism just leaves people with the empty reality that life is the result of random chance. The only thing that seems to unify them is their hatred of a common enemy.

The two most popular books in atheism today are The God Delusion and God Is Not Great. Instead of laying out a blueprint for an atheistic, utopian society, Richard Darkins and Christopher Hitchens spend most of their time throwing rocks at a deity they don’t believe exists.

The situation reminds me of how Donald Trump conducted himself in his public feud with Rosie O’Donnell. Trump claimed be above the fray, but he continued to engaged in a bitter name-calling war with O’Donnell. What finally shut him up was the realization that he was making a fool out of himself.

Militant atheism will soon find that it’s been playing the role of jester. When the rapture takes place, the people who mock God will quickly find themselves facing overwhelming evidence of God’s existence. As I said before in an article, I think prophecy has already provided enough evidence to prove that these people are making a Sucker’s Bet.

All atheists need to realize that there is no “none of the above” option. You are either on God’s side or you are on the devil’s side. That uncontrollable urge to lash out at Christian sites like RR comes because you are wearing the team uniform of the one who is in rebellion against the Creator of all things.

Do you folks really want a political party that is willing to sponsor such horribly depraved and immoral behavior? Please vote your values in November.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is holding its annual “Creating Change” conference in Detroit this week. Its sponsors claim to have trained more than 30,000 activists since 1988. Peter LaBarbera with Americans for Truth About Homosexuality has reported on the event in the past. “It’s essentially a grassroots training conference for homosexual, bisexual, transgender — and now, it turns out — sadomasochistic activists,” says LaBarbera.

The event originally focused on homosexuals, but has expanded to include individuals who are convinced that they were born into the wrong sex. The event’s handbook even addresses “transgender restroom etiquette.”

…LaBarbera says he is not sure if he is more surprised by one of the sponsors of the event or by one of the activists who will be honored. “It’s incredible to me,” he continues. “But the Democratic Party is endorsing an event where they’re actually presenting an award for sadomasochism.”

I have recounted my encounter with an abused Muslim woman before, but let me post it here for those of you who might have missed it before.

Not long ago, I visited with a Muslim lady at a local pizzeria. Well, “visited” doesn’t really sum up our brief clandestine conversation.
Let me elaborate:
The lady in question had a black eye. A real shiner.
I sat down behind her and speaking softly, I said “Ma’am, this is the United States. You don’t have to let him beat you like that”.
And she responded to me, her English perfect, but her voice quavering in fear. “Please, don’t talk to me. If my husband sees you talking to me he’ll hit me harder.”
I will never forget this exchange. I do not know who this lady is. I don’t frequent this pizzeria often, so our paths have not crossed since then. I do not know if she has suffered more beatings. I pray that she has not.

Up to 17,000 women in Britain are being subjected to “honour” related violence, including murder, every year, according to police chiefs.

And official figures on forced marriages are the tip of the iceberg, says the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

It warns that the number of girls falling victim to forced marriages, kidnappings, sexual assaults, beatings and even murder by relatives intent on upholding the “honour” of their family is up to 35 times higher than official figures suggest.

The crisis, with children as young as 11 having been sent abroad to be married, has prompted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to call on British consular staff in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to take more action to identify and help British citizens believed to be the victims of forced marriages in recent years.

The Home Office is drawing up an action plan to tackle honour-based violence which “aims to improve the response of police and other agencies” and “ensure that victims are encouraged to come forward with the knowledge that they will receive the help and support they need”. And a Civil Protection Bill coming into effect later this year will give courts greater guidance on dealing with forced marriages.

Commander Steve Allen, head of ACPO’s honour-based violence unit, says the true toll of people falling victim to brutal ancient customs is “massively unreported” and far worse than is traditionally accepted. “We work on a figure which suggests it is about 500 cases shared between us and the Forced Marriage Unit per year,” he said: “If the generally accepted statistic is that a victim will suffer 35 experiences of domestic violence before they report, then I suspect if you multiplied our reporting by 35 times you may be somewhere near where people’s experience is at.” His disturbing assessment, made to a committee of MPs last week, comes amid a series of gruesome murders and attacks on British women at the hands of their relatives.

Nobody would classify the Bible as a work of science or a medical text book, but the Bible does make certain scientific and medical statements.

Assuming that the Bible is Divinely inspired, and given that it claims a 100% accuracy rate, 100% of the time, it is only reasonable to conclude that it should be completely accurate in every scientific and medical detail.

Taking it another step further, if the Bible is Divinely inspired, then the scientific and medical errors found in the pages of other ancient, non-inspired texts should be entirely absent from its pages.

The bulk of the medical information in Scripture is found among its first five Books, the Pentateuch, and are generally accepted as being written by Moses.

Moses, according to Scripture, was educated with “all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7:22) so it would be entirely natural for the Pentateuch to reflect some of that Egyptian ‘wisdom’ — if Moses were writing according to his own knowledge.

While some medical practices in the Pentateuch are similar to those found in ancient Egyptian documents, the Pentateuch exhibits a conspicuous absence of those harmful malpractices that plague the writings of the Egyptians.

Moses penned the most advanced, flawless medical prescriptions that had ever been recorded. Moses taught the Israelites to practice sanitation to prevent the spread of disease.

Every statement that pertained to the health and medical well-being of the Israelite nation recorded by Moses could theoretically still be implemented and be completely in accord with every fact modern medicine has learned in regard to germ spreading, epidemic disease control, communal sanitation, and a host of other medical and scientific discoveries.

In 1872, a German Egyptologist named Georg Ebers discovered an ancient Egyptian papyrus (the Ebers Papyrus) that outlined what constituted the Web MD of the ancient world.

Altogether, the papyrus contains 811 prescriptions for what ails you, including “salves, plasters, and poultices; snuffs, inhalations, and gargles; draughts, confections, and pills; fumigations, suppositories, and enemata,” wrote Cyril Bryan of the Ebers Papyrus in “The Ancient Egyptian,” published in 1930.

The ancient Egyptians were renowned in the ancient world for their progress in the field of medicine.

During the days of the Medo-Persian Empire, the ancient historian Herodotus recorded that it was King Darius’ practice “to keep in attendance certain Egyptian doctors, who had a reputation for the highest eminence in their profession.”

Could the amazingly advanced medical knowledge reflected by the Pentateuch have come from Moses’ Egyptian education?

In ancient Egypt, if you went to the doctor for a splinter, he would write you out a prescription for a poultice consisting of “worm blood, mole and donkey dung.”

Of course, if you followed that prescription, the tetanus spores in the donkey poop would probably result in an agonizing death from lockjaw.

Got pimples? The Egyptian free clinic prescribes a poultice made of “a hog’s tooth, cat dung, dog dung, eau-of-samu-oil, berries-of-the-xet-plant,” which the patient is to “pound and apply as a poultice” to their skin.

Various other ingredients recorded by “The Ancient Egyptian” for the plethora of remedies concocted included “dried excrement of a child” (p. 98), “hog dung” (p. 115), and “a farmer’s urine” (p. 131).

One recipe to prevent hair growth included lizard dung and the blood from a cow, donkey, pig, dog, and stag (p. 102).

Let’s face it. The active ingredient in most of these Egyptian prescriptions is animal poop. And ancient Egypt is reputed to have had the most advanced medical knowledge in the world at that time.

For three thousand years, when medical ‘science’ wasn’t advocating better living through the liberal application of poop, it recommended blood-letting as a way to allow diseases to leave the body.

Blood-letting was considered a legitimate medical treatment until the early 20th century.

An eyewitness account of George Washington’s death relates that he came down with a chill, and in an effort to cure him, those who attended him resorted to bloodletting; “a vein was opened, but no relief afforded.” (“The Death of George Washington,” 2001).

We know now that bloodletting was exactly the wrong treatment, regardless of the malady. Victims of a traumatic injury are given glucose IV’s to strengthen the blood and prevent the patient from going into shock.

Thousands of years before the lethality of blood-letting was discovered, mankind had been informed by God that blood was the key to life. In Leviticus 17:11, Moses wrote: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.”

How could Moses have known almost 3,500 years ago that life was in the blood, something it took the rest of the scientific and medical community thousands of years to discover?

In 1847, a German doctor, seeking to reduce the mortality rate among pregnant mothers, noted that medical students would perform autopsies in the morning, then go directly from the morgue to the hospital wards without washing their hands.

He ordered everyone in his ward to wash his or her hands thoroughly in a chlorine solution after every examination. In three months, the death rate fell from 18% to 1%.

Had Dr Semmeliweis simply read the Pentateuch, he could have learned what the ancient Israelites knew three thousand years before;

“He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean seven days. He shall purify himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day; then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean.” (Numbers 19:13)

Moses also gave instructions for the mixing of the ‘water of separation’ [or ‘purification’.] Numbers 19:17’s ingredient list sounds like a typical ancient superstition.

It calls for the combination of the ashes of a red heifer, hyssop, cedar wood and scarlet.

In point of fact, this combination of ingredients produces what amounts to an antibacterial soap. Lye soap is made by pouring water through ashes.

A strong tea made from the hyssop leaves and flowering tops is used in lung, nose and throat congestion, and externally it can be applied to bruises, to reduce the swelling and discoloration.

Cedar has long been favored for use in storage cabinets because of its ability to repel insects and slow decay. In oil form, applied to humans, it is an antiseptic, astringent, expectorant (removes mucus from respiratory system), anti-fungal, sedative and insecticide” (“Spa Essential Oils,” 2005).

Cedar leaves and twigs are rich in vitamin C, and it was their effectiveness in preventing or treating scurvy that led to the tree’s being called ‘arbor vitae’ or’ tree of life’.

Lastly, Moses called for the inclusion of ‘scarlet’ — mostly probably scarlet wool. (Hebrews 9:19) Adding wool fibers to the ‘water of purification’ would make it gritty, like Lava soap.

The education Moses received in Egypt taught him to treat open sores with animal poop, but Moses taught the Israelites how to make lye soap.

The book of Leviticus lists a number of diseases and outlines ways by which an Israelite would come in contact with germs. Those with such diseases as leprosy were instructed to “dwell alone” “outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:46).

If and when a diseased individual did get close to those who were not diseased, he was instructed to “cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!” (13:45).

Here’s another seeming superstition; the ‘covering of one’s mustache’ to prevent disease. Until you give it about three seconds thought — what do you do when you cough — and why?

We are taught to ‘cover our mustaches’ to keep from spreading germs!

So, Moses, having been educated in the finest schools in Egypt in the many uses of poop in the treatment of disease, prescribed the use of soap and water to prevent disease and instituted the practice of quarantine to prevent its spread — three thousand years ago in the middle of the Sinai desert!

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Danish police said Tuesday they have arrested several people suspected of plotting to kill one of the 12 cartoonists behind the Prophet Muhammad drawings that sparked an uproar in the Muslim world two years ago.

The arrests were made in pre-dawn raids in Aarhus, western Denmark, “to prevent a terror-related murder,” the police intelligence agency said. It did not say how many people were arrested nor did it mention which cartoonist was targeted.

However, according to Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the drawings on Sept. 30, 2005, the suspects were planning to kill its cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

“There were very concrete murder plans against Kurt Westergaard,” said Carsten Juste, the paper’s editor-in-chief.

The cartoons were later reprinted by a range of Western publications, and they sparked deadly protests in parts of the Muslim world.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

Westergaard, 73, and his wife Gitte, 66, had been living under police protection because of the murder plans, Jyllands-Posten reported. It said those arrested included both Danish and foreign citizens.

“Of course I fear for my life when the police intelligence service say that some people have concrete plans to kill me. But I have turned fear into anger and resentment,” Westergaard said in a statement published on Jyllands-Posten’s Web site.

PET, the police intelligence service, called the action “preventive,” saying it decided to strike “at an early phase to stop the planning and the carrying out of the murder.”